How to Expedite US Airways Mileage Transfers with Points.com

Many of you are taking advantage of US Airways’ 100% bonus on Shared Dividend Miles this week and I have encouraged many of my clients to do the same. Transfers from account to account are typically instant, but can take up to three days to to process. That can be problematic, as it was for me yesterday. A reservation I had created for a client in Oregon was nearing the end of its 72-hour courtesy hold and the shared mileage transaction had not been processed 10 hours after initiation. I had to find a solution or else lose the award space.

US Airways was no help–the process is contracted out to points.com and the Dividend Miles service center in Phoenix could not even see a record of the transaction. Points.com does not have a customer service telephone number. Instead, there are two ways to make contact: e-mail or online chat. E-mail inquires can be sent through this online form. Chat can be found here. A disclaimer states e-mails take 48 hours to respond to, so I clicked on the online chat link.

Online chat is available between 9am and 5pm ET, but you must be patient if you use chat and be prepared to constantly refresh the page. For 15 minutes the chat box was grayed out–

Finally, it turned blue and I was connected to an agent who identified herself as Treena. The transcript of our conversation is below (emphasis mine).

Treena | P: Hello, welcome to Points.com Live Chat! In order to assist you, please provide me with the email address registered on your Points.com account, and let us know how we may assist you today?You: xxxxxx, inquiring about transfer status from a US Airways to US Airways account.Treena | P: Hi Matthew. Did you do that transfer on the US Airways website recently?You: 10 hours ago. It has always been instant in the past and I have a reservation on hold that expires today. Miles were sent from account number xxxxxx to account number xxxxxx. US Airways said I had to contact you.Treena | P: Ok. In order for me to check on the transaction for you, may I please have the confirmation number, if you have it available?You: Unfortunately, I do not have the transaction number–no confirmation e-mail was sent and I have checked my spam folder. I do see a pending charge on my Mastercard for $570 and can provide you that number if it would help.Treena | P: I have the account numbers that you provided. Let me see what I can find. I’ll be right back.You: thank youTreena | P: You’re welcome, Matthew. Still checking for you.Treena | P:Good news, Matthew! The transaction has been completed. The miles will be in the xxxxxx account.You: thank you very much. may i just quickly check?Treena | P: Of course.You: Thanks. I see the points are not showing up yet. About how long do you anticipate it will take for the miles to show up?Treena | P:The miles should be in the account within the next 30 minutes up to 24 hours.You: Very good. Thanks again for your very satisfactory assistance. Just in case I have to check back later on, do you have a points.com reference number for this transaction?Treena | P: You’re welcome, Matthew. The confirmation number for the transaction is xxxxxx. An email containing this information will also be sent to you.You: Perfect. Thank you and goodbye.

* * *

A few minutes later, the points posted. Whatever Treena did, she expedited the transfer and I was able to book the trip before the hold expired. Perhaps the points would have posted anyway in a few minutes, but I doubt it.

Others are reporting a bit of delay in receiving transferred points and that is understandable–many are taking advantage and there is some sort of queue. But if you find yourself running up against a ticketing deadline, it is worth your time to reach out to points.com with a request to expedite.

About Author

Matthew

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he
travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 120
countries over the last decade. Working both in the aviation industry
and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in the New York
Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, BBC, Fox News,
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Al Jazeera, Toronto Star, and on NPR. Studying
international relations, American government, and later obtaining a
law degree, Matthew has a plethora of knowledge outside the travel
industry that leads to a unique writing perspective. He has served in
the United States Air Force, on Capitol Hill, and in the White House.
His Live and Let's Fly blog shares the latest news in the airline
industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs and promotions, and
detailed reports of his worldwide travel. His writings on
penandpassport.com offer more general musings on life from the eyes of a frequent traveler. He also founded awardexpert.com, a
highly-personalized consulting service that aids clients in the
effective use of their credit card points and frequent flyer miles.
Clients range from retirees seeking to carefully use their nest egg of
points to multinational corporations entrusting Matthew with the
direction and coordination of company travel.

3 Comments

Well. Thanks for the false hope about a 10-hr transfer. Had an emergency flight change. Just lost $130. Should have paid the airlines outrageous fee directly, rather than succumbing to this lure of this article and trying to save some money.

Jo C: Yes, right here…I was reading your inquiries, but sorry to say that we cannot expedite transactions as they are all done electronically.

Jo C: Our Product Support Team have assured that your trade is processing successfully, however, it was just accepted today, and all trades take approximately 5 business days to complete after that time.

Jo C: Because the trade has already begun and miles debited from accounts involving another user it is not an option to cancel or refund, sorry about that.